Chapter Thirty-Two. Rose
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ROSE
I wake in the middle of the night, surrounded by shadows.
I sit up in bed, heart hammering, pushing away the fragments of another nightmare about her.
Daisy. I’ve taken to sleeping with my bedroom door ajar like a child.
The warm glow of the hallway lamp calms me when I wake, panicky and drenched in perspiration despite the fan whirring and the breeze coming in off the Chesapeake.
There’s a noise in the hall. I hope it’s not Lou, getting up to mischief. Bleary-eyed, I tiptoe to the door and peer out.
Auntie is locked in a passionate clinch with Eddie.
She’s wearing a silky green nightgown; he’s in blue jeans and white shirtsleeves, his dark hair mussed.
Did he stay the night? As I watch, a little scandalized, Eddie presses her against the wall.
His mouth moves to her throat. One of his big hands cups the curve of her breast. Auntie’s eyes are squeezed shut, her face a grimace of pleasure.
It’s too intimate. I’m about to turn away and shut my door—it’s clearly a private moment—when a strange shadow creeps down the hall behind Eddie.
It takes my sleepy brain a minute to decipher it: the long handle and the big, netted loop. It’s not until the shadow jerks back, quick as a whip, that I throw my door open.
“No!” I whisper-shriek.
I’m too late. The tennis racket wallops Eddie right above the ear.
Ella has a wicked forehand.
Eddie staggers sideways, clutching his head. “What in the hell?”
Ella advances, gripping the tennis racket. She’s barefoot in pale pink pajamas. Her dark hair falls to her waist in one long shining plait. She looks like a child but moves like a hunter, silent— stealthy—deadly.
“Ella, what are you doing?” I cry. “Stop!”
She swings the racket again, wilder this time.
Eddie dodges. Retreats to the top of the staircase. I imagine Ella swinging a third time, Eddie stumbling as he evades her, tumbling head over heels down the stairs, landing in a crumpled heap at the bottom.
My stomach plummets as I remember McIntosh’s broken neck.
I dart forward. Put myself between them. “Ella, stop!”
She looks at me. There’s something wrong behind her eyes.
“He was hurtin’ her,” she says. That’s not Ella’s sweet soprano. It’s lower—slower—smokier. I could almost think it’s rough with sleep, except for the slight Eastern Shore accent.
My entire body goes ice-cold, the hair on my arms and the back of my neck prickling with fear. That’s not my sister. That’s not Ella.
That’s Daisy.
“Oh, darling, no.” The neckline of Auntie’s nightgown is very low; she crosses her arms over her chest as if suddenly realizing it. “He wasn’t hurting me, he was kissing me.”
Ella’s lip curls with disgust. “You can’t want him grabbin’ at you like that.”
I remember what Daisy’s mother said: A good girl, too, except for that business with Jacob’s boy.
She told me he attacked her, you know. Forced himself on her.
I remember Stanley holding Ella too tightly, mashing his lips against hers.
Manhandling her in front of everyone. Not intimacy, but assault.
“I do,” Auntie squeaks, her face red. “Sometimes, darling, with the right man—a man whose company you enjoy—that kind of touch can be very nice. It may not seem appealing now, but you’ll understand when you’re older …
Please put down the racket, Ella. I love that you want to protect me, but I’m perfectly safe. ”
Is that what Daisy is trying to do? Keep us safe?
“Auntie likes him. They’ve been dating,” I explain. “Mr. Lloyd is a nice man.”
Ella looks from Auntie to Mr. Lloyd as though she’s trying to puzzle out the truth. Her grip on the tennis racket slackens.
“We’ve been seeing one another since before you girls arrived. We haven’t been very discreet, I’m afraid. Rose caught us canoodling in my office.”
Eddie steps forward. His ears must be ringing from that blow, but he smiles at Ella. “I know we come from very different worlds, but I’d do just about anything to make your aunt happy. I plan to stick around for as long as she’ll have me.”
Auntie takes his hand. “You do make me happy. And perhaps it’s time we stop sneaking around. Look what trouble it’s caused!” She stands on her tiptoes to check his head, murmuring sympathetically.
I take Ella’s arm, although every instinct in my body is screaming not to touch her, that’s not my sister, that’s someone—something—else! “She’s safe. We’re all safe. Do you understand? We’re all safe, Ella.”
I can tell the moment Daisy leaves her: Ella’s shoulders slump. The tennis racket falls to her side. She looks at Auntie fussing over Eddie, then down at the racket in her hand, as though putting two and two together.
“I hit him?” She’s trembling.
“I think you must have been half asleep, and confused,” I say, for Auntie and Eddie’s benefit. I wrap an arm around Ella’s waist. She leans into me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Lloyd.”
“No harm done. Ma always said I’ve got a hard head.” He raps his knuckles on his forehead.
“I’m sorry, Auntie,” Ella croaks.
Auntie smiles. “It’s all right, darling. It was all a big mis- understanding.”
“Let’s get you back to bed,” I suggest.
In Ella’s room, I step over records and Keds and Seventeen magazines and bottles of nail polish. She’s thrown a silk scarf over her mirror. How long has it been there?
I’ve been so oblivious.
I pull on the lamp and shut the door.
“See? No harm done.” I make my voice calm. Ella needs comforting—soothing—mothering, and I’m all she’s got, even if I feel deeply inadequate to the task. “Why don’t I brush your hair? That always makes me feel nice and sleepy.”
Ella nods, clambers onto her four-poster bed, and turns her back to me.
I grab the silver brush from her vanity and climb up next to her.
She looks terribly young, her slender frame swallowed up by the pink menswear-style pajamas.
All her former selves parade through my mind: Ella as a baby, toddling after me in pink ruffles and pigtails; Ella at six, face glowing with pride after her first piano recital; Ella at twelve, trying to master her nerves as she was dropped off at Miss Parker’s for the first time.
I unbraid her hair and brush it out with gentle, crackling strokes. For a time, there’s only her hiccupping breaths and the whisper of the brush. I wait.
“I think I’m going mad, like Mama,” she whispers.
My heart shatters.
If I was terrified, how much worse must it have been for her?
I didn’t think—
My God, why didn’t I think? I’ve been so distracted with Grace and Cooper and Joe Harrow and his threats, I’ve completely neglected my sister. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. That changes now. Ella has to be my first priority.
“No, you’re not. What happened with Eddie—that wasn’t you.”
“It was.” Ella twists to face me, her teary brown eyes meeting mine. “I’m the one who hurt them, Rosie.”
I go cold all over at the confirmation.
“I’m the one who killed them. Mr. McIntosh and Stanley. I didn’t mean to—I don’t even remember doing it—but I was there. Both times, I was there, and then they were dead. It’s my fault, Rosie! I deserve to go to jail, or—or—”
Or a sanitarium. Like her mother.
Damn my father for making us both so afraid.
I pull Ella into my arms, and she sobs onto my shoulder. I pat her hair, thick and dark and shining, and so like her mother’s.
“It’s not your fault. Look at me.” I draw back. Wait until she lifts her tearstained face. “It’s her. The ghost.”
Ella’s face goes blank with shock. “How—what? How?” she gasps.
“I’ve seen her, too. Ever since we arrived. It’s not just you.”
“You can see her?” Hope dawns across her face. “I’m not going mad?”
“No. I thought that, too, at first. I was so frightened. I can feel her when I’m angry or afraid. I don’t feel in control. That scratch across Mr. Harrow’s face? There wasn’t any stray cat. That was me. I attacked him. Or—she attacked him, using me.” I shiver.
“You did that?” She’s still hesitant to believe it.
“I did. He was insulting Father, insulting me, telling me to stay away from Coop and Grace, and I was so angry and then—I went away. When I came back, one of my nails was broken.”
Ella’s lower lip wobbles. “I’ve been seeing her in the mirrors since the day we got here. I was too scared to tell anyone, even you. I was afraid I was sick like Mama, and you’d send me away.”
“Never.” I put a hand on each side of her face and look her right in the eye. “Never, sweet girl. Do you hear me? I will never, ever let that happen.”
Tears weave down Ella’s cheeks, thinner now than when we arrived at the hotel.
She’s been scared, she’s been suffering right in front of me, and I didn’t see it.
I didn’t help her.
I could cut out my own heart for being so damned thoughtless.
I tell Ella how Grace has been seeing the ghost for months. How Grace and I realized we had this, of all things, in common. How we’ve been investigating ever since, trying to figure out who the ghost was and what happened to her.
“Why is she doing this to me?” Ella begs.
I tell her how Daisy was assaulted and then sent to the Harrow Home when she fell pregnant. How she became friends with Grace’s aunt, then disappeared, and everyone thought she ran away. How we now believe that Daisy Wheeler never left the Harrow Home at all.
I don’t tell my sister that Joe Harrow killed Daisy. I don’t have proof of that. Yet.
But I’m going to find it.
“I think, in her own way, she’s been trying to protect us.”
Ella nods, thoughtful. “I might have gotten in real trouble with McIntosh if she hadn’t intervened.”
“What really happened that night?”
“I can’t sleep here. It’s too quiet without Vivi breathing across the room or the traffic of the city.
I’m afraid I’ll see her in the windows or the mirror.
So I wander. That night, I went down to the cellar to sneak some of Dad’s hooch.
I thought it might help me sleep.” Ella bows her head, ashamed.
“I nearly died of fright when McIntosh came stumbling in the back door. He was blotto. I ran upstairs, but he followed me up the steps and grabbed me. He said the least I could do was make it up to him for getting him canned. He tried to kiss me and I—I don’t know what came over me—”
“Daisy.” Part of me is grateful that she protected my sister when I couldn’t.
“It was like I blinked, and he was lying at the bottom of the stairs. He wasn’t moving, and his neck—” Ella covers her face with both hands as though she’s picturing the grisly scene.
“I didn’t push him. I don’t think I pushed him.
But I knew it would look bad. So I—I left him there.
And I lied when you asked if I’d seen him.
But I didn’t lie about meeting him for a tryst. I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”
“I know. It was an accident.” I bite my lip, trying to reconcile it all. McIntosh was dead after that fall. There was nothing Ella could have done. “And—Stanley?”
“I was roaming, and I heard a ruckus down by the pool. I wanted to turn around as soon as I saw it was him. But Stanley had already seen me, and I didn’t want to be rude—”
“God forbid.” I sigh.
“He told me he and Grace had broken up, so he was a free man. ‘Gimme a kiss,’ he said. I said no, but he grabbed me and kissed me again, Rosie, and it was disgusting. He used his tongue!” Ella is indignant.
“I extricated myself, and told him to stop it. I turned around to walk away, and he smacked my bottom!”
“And Daisy came out. To protect you.” Things are becoming clearer now.
“The next thing I knew, he was in the pool. I didn’t know he hit his head, I swear.
I thought he’d climb right out. I would have called for help if I knew.
” Ella closes her eyes in horror. “When you and Auntie told me he was dead and the police were questioning Grace, I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t want her to get in any trouble.
But Auntie said it wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was a terrible accident. ”
“It was an accident. If he’d kept his hands to himself, he wouldn’t be dead, now would he.” I’m seething over what that boor did to my little sister.
Ella runs a hand over her staticky hair, tucking it behind her ear. “But he didn’t deserve to die for that, Rosie. Shouldn’t I be punished? Two men are dead because of me, and tonight I hurt Eddie.” Her voice climbs. “What if it happens again? What if I hurt someone else? I can’t go on like this!”
The despair on her face makes me want to cry. I don’t know how much more Ella can take. If she hurts someone else—if there’s another misunderstanding, and she hurts an innocent man this time—will she be able to live with herself?
“I’m going to fix this. I swear it. On my mother’s grave,” I promise.
“How?” Ella asks.
“Grace and I are going to find out what happened to Daisy. We’re going to make sure that the person who hurt her is held responsible. I promise you, we are going to get justice for Daisy Wheeler. And peace for the rest of us.”
Ella leans against me, exhausted but trusting. “Peace would be really nice, Rosie.”